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© Davidson Loehr
September 10, 2006
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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PRAYER:
Jack R. Harris-Bonham
Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming,
we sit here this morning feeling solid and permanent, and yet, a nagging voice in all of us admits and possibly celebrates the fact that life is transient.
The most important things in life are simply invisible. We can’t see the love that exists between all of us, but it’s there.
It’s there in our helloes, and our asking, “How are you today?”
It’s there in our answers, even when we’re just being polite and say, “We’re fine,” regardless of our feelings.
Gathered together there is created between and among us something greater than the sum of individual parts. This is called community and in this case a covenant community.
Covenant means we’ve made a solemn compact to maintain our faith and discipline. In our case we have no dogma, and no sacred, holy book so our covenant is different.
Our solemn compact is to maintain our faith in each other. This is a loving and giving faith. We give each other the benefit of the doubt because we have an abundance of doubt.
The Buddhists say great faith and great doubt are the hallmarks of discernment.
When we UU’s read character we bring to that reading an abundance of faith in humankind, and an abundance of doubt in the idea that any god can save us. We put our invisible faith in one another and with that belief we promise to serve not because we will be served, but because a sacred command to serve the other and to see the other in ourselves has been given.
We serve ourselves by serving others.
Today we rejoice in things that seem contradictory.
We expand and contract stretching who we thought we were, admitting when we are wrong, taking back things said, asking forgiveness for acts unbecoming a friend and existing together as less than perfect human beings; loving as best we can, living better than we could have imagined, and laughing at ourselves all the while.
We pray this in the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything.
Amen
SERMON: Coming and Going
I’m starting the first half of my sabbatical tomorrow. Jack will be the minister for the next three months. Then I’ll be back for three months, then gone between mid-March and mid-June.
With all the coming and going, it’s a good time to ask what’s at the core of this place, and of liberal religion. What stays here? If you took a picture of this place once a day for fifty years, then ran all those pictures at 32 frames per second like a movie, everything but the building would be a blur. But you don’t come just to see the building; that isn’t the attraction. What makes this place worth having is invisible, but more important than all the visible parts.
What is at the center of liberal religion? If it isn’t the minister and we don’t have one book we call Holy, like the Bible or the Koran, then what’s the center – or is there one? Is it just a bunch of people who can believe anything they like and expect others to respect it just because they believe it?
No. That would be a group of narcissisms, each writing the others blank moral checks, as though it didn’t matter what we believe. But it does matter. Some beliefs are awful, or narrow or willfully ignorant, destructive, or just too silly.
But if it matters, why? By what authority? What must we believe, and how can you say it in a religion without a creed or a Holy book? You may see the pink poster in the hall with the Seven Banalities on it. And if you’re from an orthodox religion, you may assume that’s the creed here, the beliefs required or assumed of all members. But it isn’t. It even says so. It’s a behavioral agreement between church, not of individuals. As St. Paul said in one of his greatest lines, we must all work out our own salvation “in fear and trembling.”
That’s what I want to talk about this morning – what liberal religion, or any honest religion, is about, and why it’s a good thing for you, for our country, even for the world.
In some ways, it’s implied in the Invocation I use to begin each service:
It is a sacred place, this:
A place for questions more profound than answers,
Vulnerability more powerful than strength
And a peace that can pass all understanding.
That’s not an orthodox Invocation. Orthodoxy poses answers more profound than questions. Turning it around the way we do means we have the ability and the duty to question all received answers: religious, social, or political.
And some of the core of liberal religion is in the Benediction I use each week, which is a very liberal benediction:
For those who seek God, may your God go with you;
For those who embrace Life, may Life return your affection;
And for those who seek a better path, may you find that path,
And the courage to take it: step by step by step.
Honest religion is about asking the kind of questions that can inform and deepen our appreciation and acceptance of ourselves and others, our love of life, and our passion to try and make a positive difference in the world around us, as the rent we pay for living.
There are a lot of ways of saying this. The theologian Howard Thurman put it this way: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” You need something to connect the passions of your soul with the needs of your world.
Another way of putting it, a little scarier, is told in an old Buddhist story.
A seeker reported to the local guru.
“What do you want?” asked the teacher.
“To know the truth!” said the student.
“Very risky,” said the older man. “Do you know what is demanded of you in this quest?”
“Oh yes,” said the student: “A passionate desire for Truth.”
“No,” said the guru, “a never-ending ability to admit that you are wrong.”.
It is a mixture, perhaps, of arrogance and humility that’s required here. The arrogance comes with the willingness to question things we may never have questioned, that maybe even our family never questioned. Very risky. And the humility comes from knowing that life is so much bigger than we are, and that all our arrogance is both unwarranted and a little silly.
There are two wonderful stories from the Hindu tradition that picture both the arrogance and the humility. Part of what we’re about here is borrowing from any religious, philosophical or other tradition that offers us healthy spiritual nourishment. If it helps us to a wiser and more responsible path, it is equally valid, whether it comes from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or all the other religious and non-religious traditions reflecting on life.
Before telling you the first story, I’ll tell you how I learned the story, which is an interesting story in itself. A few years ago there was an Indian Hindu woman who used to attend here, always arriving late and leaving early. For months, I wondered who she was and why she came in late and left early. Then one Sunday we had some special music, and I snuck out to the foyer and caught her. “Aha! I’ve caught you!” I said. She said she knew she’d be caught sooner or later, and we laughed.
I asked her why she came late and left early. Well, she explained that she had to drive her son to Barsana Dham (perhaps a 35-40 minute drive from here) then had to drive back to pick him up after the service. “Why don’t you bring him here?” I asked.
“No!” she said quite forcefully. “Why not?” “Because he was bored here.” “Why?” She wagged a finger at me, and said, “Because you have no good stories here!”
Now I’m not about to go toe-to-toe with a Hindu over the quantity and quality of stories! But I was curious. “They have better stories for him there?” “Hah! They have hundreds of better stories!”
“Tell me one.” “One? I could tell you a hundred!” “Just one.” Very well, she said she would tell me the story he had heard last week, which they had been discussing at dinner every night because he wanted to talk about it.
It is a lovely story about the favorite Hindu god Krishna, as a boy. Krishna, if you don’t know, was a bit of a brat, so kids especially like those stories. The teacher saw him chewing in class one day and asked what he was chewing – they all knew that chewing gum was forbidden in the classroom. “Nothing,” he replied, and kept chewing. “Liar!” she said, and she walked to his desk. “Stand up,” she commanded, and Krishna stood up. “Now open your mouth and let me look inside!” Krishna opened his mouth. She looked in, and inside of his mouth she saw – a thousand million galaxies. That’s the kind of potential we have inside of us: a thousand million galaxies. Possibilities beyond measure, beyond imagining. You could get pretty arrogant believing only that!
The second Hindu story is one I heard from the great scholar of mythology, Joseph Campbell. It’s about Indra, who is sort of the king of all the gods, the #1 god. In this story, Indra had a big head. After all, he was chief among the gods, and it hardly gets better than that. So a wise man took Indra, said there was something he needed to show him. In Hinduism, as you know, there is a belief in reincarnation: that we keep coming back in one form of life or another. So the wise man pointed down to the ground, and there, in formation, were thousands upon thousands of ants marching along. “Ants!” bellowed Indra. “What are ants to me? What are they?” “Ah,” said the wise man, “They are all former Indras. Thousands upon thousands of former Indras.” Today, king of the gods; tomorrow just another ant. Great story!
How do we realize some of our infinite potential? How do we do it? Well, imperfectly, to be sure. The goal isn’t to be perfect; it’s to become more whole. How do we do that? There are clues from nature, from the world around us.
If you’ve lived in Texas for long, you’ve heard of mesquite trees, and probably seen some. Around here, they’re usually scruffy and small, seldom even a foot in diameter. But if you drive a couple hours west, you can find mesquite trees, growing by rivers, that are up to six feet or more in diameter. Same species of tree. Without enough nourishment, it will stay small; put it by a nice river, and it can grow huge.
Or think of the fish called Koi, those fish in the carp family that are so prized by many Asians, and found in pools at a lot of Asian restaurants. One of the most amazing things about koi is that how big they get is determined by the size of the pond they’re in. Put them in a fish bowl and they’ll stay very small. Put them in a bigger tank, they grow bigger. Put them in a very big pond, they will grow to lengths of a foot and more. Same fish. It’s potential can’t be unlocked without giving it the right amount of the right kind of nourishment. And neither can our potential be realized without the right kind of nourishment and an environment of large scope.
Sometimes, the vast potential we may feel inside is too big to cope with, and we go back to our smaller selves and cling to them because they’re all we know. And sometimes, we can grow from small to large in vision very quickly.
Just a few weeks ago, I saw an example of how this works in real life and real-time. I was in Colorado, near Aspen, to spend a week studying with a very good British woodturner named Ray Key. As some of you may know, woodturning is my hobby, my therapy and sometimes my obsession. I like to study with Masters, because it’s like swimming in a very big pond or growing near a big river. These guys have been woodturners for forty years or more, are better at it than I’ll ever dream of being, so there’s a lot to learn from them – as long as you can leave your ego at the door. I get a little better each time, though I may never be more than a fervent amateur.
There were eight of us in the class, covering the spectrum. One man I’ll call Bob had turned very few pieces before coming to this class advertised as being for intermediate to advanced students. So Ray, the teacher, suggested he focus on just one form, one bowl shape he really liked, and learn how to do that well this week. He showed Ray some magazine photos of bowls he liked, and Ray helped set him up to turn that shape. By the end of the week, he had made eight or ten bowls in this shape, and two or three of them were very nice. He had created small works of beauty, done with skills he learned that week. The ocean is very big. Just take the sips you can handle. Don’t worry about containing a thousand million bowls – just start with one small bowl you can handle.
We learn life and religion this way, too: step by step by step.
Another man I’ll call Tom had spent $5,000 on his lathe – you learned this within about thirty seconds – a couple thousand on tools, and seemed to need to be seen as good, though the truth is that he wasn’t very good. He kept exploding his bowls on the lathe, pieces flying everywhere as he made the cut wrong on a bowl spinning at over 1,000 rpm. And he simply couldn’t see the difference between a really nice form and an awkward one.
Ray was as blunt as any Buddhist guru. Once when Tom called Ray to look at a bowl he was doing to ask for suggestions, I heard Ray say, “Well, there is nothing you can do to save this form – it’s a disaster!” Very risky studying with masters, if you can’t leave your ego at the door!
But Tom couldn’t let go of his ego enough to open up and find a new way of looking at forms. He couldn’t really admit that he had a heck of a lot to learn, or that he had picked up a lot of bad habits. Day after day, he kept doing what he did at home, wanting it praised, it seemed, and day after day he exploded bowls and made graceless shapes.
At the end of the week, we had a three-hour class critique. We were each to show what we thought was our best work, and our worst work. Even more, we were to paint our worst work black, with blackboard paint. This ruined the piece, but made it very easy to see what was right and wrong with its form.
When Tom’s turn came, some of us were surprised with the piece he painted black, because it looked pretty good. The one he held out as his best work looked mediocre. Ray said, “No, you don’t have anything better than the black piece” – the one he’d just ruined by painting it. He couldn’t tell the difference, even after a week with one of the best in the world.
This reminded me of so many stories from religion and life. The title of this week-long wood-turning workshop was “Pure Form,” taught by a master wood turner whose stunning pieces are in some of the world’s best museums, art galleries and private collections. Form is what he had an exceptional eye for. He would be bothered by a little swelling in a curve that couldn’t have stuck out more than 1/100th of an inch. To him, it was glaring and grotesque. And once he pointed it out, you couldn’t forget it either, and had to try and recut it. And this man Tom, since he wouldn’t let go of the smaller vision he came in with, seemed to learn nothing.
The stories of these two men are like the difference between one who goes on a spiritual journey, and Rip van Winkle. The first returns transformed; the second spends the same amount of time away, but has only a beard to show for the time passed.
Life and religion are a lot like this. While there is more than one form – for a bowl or for a life – there is still a difference between good form and poor form, and it’s a difference we’re trying to learn: in life, and here in this church.
We have a duty to bring ourselves to our own kind of fullness. For some, that fullness will be more intellectual, or more athletic, or assertive, or nurturing, or mystical or artistic. We’re different people, and one path doesn’t fit all, in religion, politics or life.
And there is a responsibility – I think it’s a sacred responsibility – connected with serving high ideals. Ray did it as well as any Buddhist teacher, both in bringing his art down to the level of a serious beginner, and in being flat-out honest with a pretender. If he had flattered mediocre work, he would have betrayed his art. And if he had just wanted to show us his own work, he would have betrayed his duty to serve us that week.
Serving high ideals is like picking up a Stradivarius violin: they take the measure of you, and demand a high quality of service from you. This is true in every area, certainly including public service and religion. When I get angry at politicians – from this or any other administration – it’s usually because they forget their job is to serve the majority of us, rather than the special interests that butter their bread. That’s a betrayal of trust, and of their office.
And when ministers serve lower ends, they are committing the same kind of betrayal. When Pat Robertson says we should murder Hugh Chavez, he has betrayed every high teaching in the religion he claims to serve. When Jerry Falwell says we should blow away terrorists in the name of the Lord, he cannot in the same breath pretend to give a damn about the teachings of Jesus. Likewise when Rev. Hagee in San Antonio urges the president to launch a nuclear attack on Iran and start World War III – this is a betrayal of a high calling, of high ideals, and it is unforgivable. It is serious business, and we must take it seriously. As a theologian I’ve sometimes liked once said to a group of young preachers, “Your people expect you to take them more seriously than they take themselves, and they will not think kindly of you if you fail to do so!”
I hope that coming here can offer you the chance to find some of the galaxies you contain, some of the arrogance needed to break away from a vision that may be too small for you, and enough of a challenge to keep you humble. For vulnerability, humility, really can be more powerful than strength. Remember that an ocean is bigger than a river, yet it is big because it’s lower than rivers. That’s why their waters flow into the ocean. Its humility gives it strength.
A final story to make a final point about what liberal religion and this church are about, and what stays here through all the comings and goings of ministers and members. It’s from twenty-five years ago, when I was in graduate school studying with other kinds of masters. David taught “Arts of the Ministry,” and was one of the most gifted preachers I’ve known, with a sure grasp on what this religion business is about, on both sides. There were about fifteen of us in the class, covering many different religions. We met on Monday afternoon, and one Monday, before the seminar began, about four or five of the Lutheran students were complaining about the service at their church the day before. They went on about how awful it was, how inept the preacher was, how amateurish the liturgist was, how cheesy the music, and the rest of it. Then one of them said, “I didn’t get one damned thing from that service!” That’s when David finally spoke up from across the room, from where he had been eavesdropping on us. What he said was, “How hard did you try?”
I sometimes hear people say that life sucks, or they don’t see what there is to give thanks for, and I want to say, “How hard did you try? How much of yourself have you invested in it?” That’s the other part of liberal religion. You don’t get canned, pre-packaged answers or paths here. We can’t give you a slogan that will save you, just some imaginative building materials and a safe place to try your hand at building. It’s a do-it-yourself kit, in an atmosphere where everyone who’s trying is doing it themselves, with the material they get from sermons, from discussions after church, and from interacting with and being around one another.
It matters what we believe. You’ll always hear, I hope, that it matters how we live: that life is a gift, but we owe something in return for the gift of life. We owe the world our best efforts to bring ourselves to fullness, then to offer something back, to try and make a positive difference in the world around us. How close to the river have we managed to live? How big a pond have we tried swimming in? When there are things to learn, can we let go of our smaller selves and admit we need to learn? We need to go where nourishment is, and stay away from people and places where there is no nourishment. And then, before we can throw a fit about how unsatisfied we are with life, there is that question always hanging in the air: “How hard did you try?”
Inside of us are a thousand million possibilities. There is also a clock, ticking, reminding us that we move every day toward that time when we shall not move at all, and that it is our move. And we learn these things here in this pretty big pond, this large river of people moving through life, touching each other as we pass. In all of life, there are so very few places like this. That’s why I wanted to remind you, on this canvass Sunday, just why this marvelous church is worth supporting, as generously as you can.
